The Magnificent Adventure / Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman

Meriwether Lewis had won his long fight! He had mastered the human emotions of his soul at last. The battle had been such that he sat here now, weak and spent. He sat looking at the face which had meant so much to him all these years.

There came into his mind some recollection of words that she had written to him once—something about the sound of water. He lifted his head and listened. Yes, there was a sound coming faintly through the night—the trickle of a little brook in the ravine below the window.

Always, he recalled, she had spoken of the sound of water, saying that that music would blot out memory—saying that water would wash out secrets, would wash out sins. What was it she had said? What was it she had written to him long ago? What did it mean—about the water?

The sound of the little brook came to his ears again in some shift of the wind. He rose and stumbled toward the window, carrying the candle in his hand. His haggard face was lighted by its flare as he stood there, leaning out, listening.

It was then that his doom came to him.

There came the sound of a shot; a second; and yet another.

The woman in the cabin near by heard them clearly enough. She rose and listened. There was no sound from the other cabins. The servants paid no attention to the shots, if they had heard them—and why should they not have heard them? No one called out, no one came running.

Frightened, the woman rose, and after a time stepped timidly across the covered space between the two rooms, toward the light which she saw shining faintly through the cracks of the door. She heard groans within.

A tall and ghastly figure met her as she approached the door. She saw his face, white and haggard and stained. From a wound in the forehead a broad band of something dark fell across his cheek. From his throat something dark was welling. He clutched a hand on his breast—and his fingers were dark.

He was bleeding from three wounds; but still he stood and spoke to her.

“In God’s name, Madam,” said he, “bring me water! I am killed!”

She ran away, she knew not where, calling to the others to come; but they did not come. She was alone. Once more, forgetful of her errand, incapable of rendering aid, she went back to the door.

She heard no sound. She flung open the door and peered into the room. The candle was standing, broken and guttering, on the floor. She could see the scattered belongings of the traveling-cases, empty now. The occupant of the room was gone! In terror she fled once more, back to her own room, and cowered in her bed.

Staggering, groping, his hands strained to him to hold in the life that was passing, Meriwether Lewis had left the room where he had received his wounds, and had stepped out into the air, into the night. All the resolution of his soul was bent upon one purpose. He staggered, but still stumbled onward.

It seemed to him that he heard the sound of water, and blindly, unconsciously, he headed that way. He entered the shadow of the woods and passed down the little slope of the hill. He fell, rather than seated himself, at the side of the brook whose voice he had heard in the night. He was alone. The wilderness was all about him—the wilderness which had always called to him, and which now was to claim him.

He sat, gasping, almost blind, feeling at his pockets. At last he found it—one of the sulphur matches made for him by good old Dr. Saugrain. Tremblingly he essayed to light it, and at last he saw the flare.

With skill of custom, though now almost unconsciously, his fingers felt for dry bits of bark and leaves, little twigs. Yes, the match served its purpose. A tiny flame flickered between his feet as he sat.

Did any eye see Meriwether Lewis as he sat there in the dark at his last camp fire? Did any guilty eye look on him making his last fight?

He sat alone by the little fire. His hand, dropping sometimes, responsive only to the supreme effort of his will, fumbled in the bosom of his old coat. There were some papers there—some things which no other eyes than his must ever see! Here was a secret—it must always be a secret—her secret and his! He would hide forever from the world what had been theirs in common.

The tiny flame rose up more strongly, twice, thrice, five times—six times in all! One by one he had placed them on the flames—these letters that he had carried on his heart for years—the six letters that she had written him when he was far away in the unknown. He held the last one long, trying to see the words. He groaned. He was almost blind. His trembling finger found the last word of the last letter. It rose before him in tall characters now, all done in flame and not in block—Theodosia!

Now they were gone! No one could ever see them. No one could know how he had treasured them all these years. She was safe!

Before his soul, in the time of his great accounting, there rose the passing picture of the years. Free from suffering, now absolved, resigned, he was a boy once more, and all the world was young. He saw again the slopes of old Albemarle, beautiful in the green and gold of an early autumn day in old Virginia. He heard again his mother’s voice. What was it that she said? He bent his head as if to listen.

“Your wish—your great desire—your hope—your dream—all these shall be yours at last, even though the trail be long, even though the burden be too heavy to carry farther.”

So then she had known—she had spoken the truth in her soothsaying that day so long ago! Now his fading eye looked about him, and he nodded his head weakly, as if to assent to something he had heard.

He had so earnestly longed—he had so greatly desired—to be an honorable man! He had so longed and desired to do somewhat for others than himself! And here was peace, here indeed was conquest. His great desire was won!

His lax hands dropped between his knees as he sat. A little gust of wind sweeping down the gully caught up some of the white ashes—stained as they were with blood that dropped from his veins as he bent above them—carried them down upon the tiny thread of the little brook. It carried them away toward the sea—his blood, the ashes, the secret which they hid.

At length he rose once more, his splendid will still forcing his broken body to do its bidding. Half crawling up the bank, once more he stood erect and staggered back across the yard, into the room. The woman heard him there again. Pity arose in her breast; once more she mastered her terror and approached the door.

“In God’s name, Madam,” said he, “bring me water—wine! I am so strong, I am hard to die! Bind up my wounds—I have work to do! Heal me these wounds!”

But not her power nor any power could heal such wounds as his. Once more she called out for aid, and none came.

The night wore away. The dying man lay on his bearskin pallet on the floor, motionless now and silent, but still breathing, and calm at last. It was dawn when the recreant servant found him there.

“Peria,” said Meriwether Lewis, turning his fading eye on the man, “do not fear me. I will not hurt you. But my watch—I cannot find it—it seems gone. I am hard to die, it seems. But the little watch—it had—a—picture—Ah!”

CHAPTER XIX

So Peria passed from sight and view, and almost from memory, not accused, not acquitted. Long afterward a brother of Meriwether Lewis met him, and found that he was carrying the old rifle and the little watch which every member of the family knew so well. These things had been missing from the effects of Meriwether Lewis in the inventory—indeed, little remained in the traveling-cases save a few scattered papers and the old spyglass. There was no gold. There were no letters of any kind.

Soon there came down from Monticello to Locust Hall the coach of Thomas Jefferson.

“Madam,” said he, when finally he stood at the side of the mistress of Locust Hall, “it is heavy news I thought to bring—I see that you have heard it. What shall I say—what can we say to each other? I mourn him as if he were my own son.”

“It has come at last,” said the mother of Meriwether Lewis. “The wilderness has him, as I knew it would! I told him, here at this place, when he was a boy, that at last the load would weigh him down.”

“The rumor is that he died by his own hand. I find it difficult to believe. It is far more likely that some enemy or robber was guilty of the deed.”

“Whom had he ever harmed?” she demanded of Jefferson.

“None in the world, with intent; but he had enemies. Whether by his own hand or that of another, he died a gallant gentleman. He would not think of himself alone. But listen—bear with me if I tell you that could your son send out the news himself, perhaps he might say ’twas by his own hand he perished, and not by that of another!”

“Never, Mr. Jefferson, never will I believe that! It was not in his nature!”

“I agree with you. But when we take the last wishes of the dead, we take what is the law for us. And the law of your son was the law of honor. Suppose, my dear madam, there were a woman concerned in this matter?”

“He never wronged a woman in his life——”

“Precisely, nor in his death would he wrong one! Do you begin to see?”

“Did he ever speak to you of her?”

“It was impossible that he should; but I knew them both. I knew their secret. Were it in his power to do so, I am sure that he carried his secret with him, so that it might never be shared by any. That secret he has guarded in death as in life.”

“But shall I let that stain rest on his name?” The dark eye of the old woman gleamed upon her son’s friend.

“Do not I love him also? I am speaking now only of his own wish—not ours. I know that he would shield her at any cost—nay, I know he did shield her at any cost. May not we shield him—and her—no matter what the cost to us? If he laid that wish on us, ought we not to respect it? Madam, I shall frame a letter which will serve to appease the criticism of the public in regard to your son. If it be not the exact truth—and who shall tell the exact truth?—it will at least be accepted as truth, and it will forever silence any talk. What should the public know of a life such as his? There are some lives which are tragically large, and such was his. He lived with honor, and he could not die without it. What was in his heart we shall not ask to know. If ever he sinned, he is purged of any sin.”

Jefferson was silent for a moment, holding the bereaved mother’s hand in his own.

“He shall have a monument, madam,” he went on. “It shall mark his grave in yonder wilderness. They shall name at least a county for him, and hold it his sacred grave-place—there in Tennessee, by the old Indian road. Let him lie there under the trees—that is as he would wish. He shall have some monument—yes, but how futile is all that! His greatest monument will be in the vast new country which he has brought to us. He was a man of a natural greatness not surpassed by any of his time.”

What of Theodosia Alston, loyal and lofty soul, blameless wife, devoted and pathetic adherent to the fallen fortunes of her ill-starred father?

Three years after Meriwether Lewis laid him down to sleep in the forest, a ship put out from Charleston wharf. It was bound for the city of New York, where at that time there was living a broken, homeless, forsaken man named Aaron Burr—a man execrated at home, discredited abroad, but who now, after years of exile, had crept home to the country which had cast him out.

A passenger on that ship was Theodosia Alston, the daughter of Aaron Burr. That much is known. The ship sailed. It never came to port. No more is known.

To this day none knows what was the fate of Aaron Burr’s daughter, one of the most appealing figures of her day, a woman made for happiness, but continually in close touch with tragedy. Wherever her body may lie, she has her wish. The sound of the eternal waters is the continuous requiem in her ears. Her secret, if she had one, is washed away long ere this, and is one with the eternal secrets of the sea. As to her sin, she had none. Above her memory, since she has no grave, there might best be inscribed the words she wrote at a time of her own despair:

Did the little brook in Tennessee ever find its way down to the sea? Did it carry a scattered drop of a man’s lifeblood, little by little thinning, thinning on its long journey? Did ever a wandering flake of ashes, melting, rest on its bosom for so great a journey as that toward the sea?

Did the sound of a voice in the wilderness, passing across the unknown leagues, ever reach an ear that heard? Who can tell? Perhaps in the great ten thousand years such things may be—perhaps deep calls to deep, and there are no longer sins nor tears.

A million hearth-fires mark the camp-fire trail of Meriwether Lewis. We own the country which he found, and for which he paid. He sleeps. Above him stands the monument which his chief assigned to him—his country. It rises now in glory and splendor, the perfected vision which he saw.

That is the happy ending of his story—his country! It is ours. As its title came to us in honor, it is for us to love it honorably, to use it honorably, and to defend it honorably. None may withstand us while we hold to his ambitions—while our sons measure to the stature of such a man.

Footnotes:

Transcriber’s Note:

Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters’ errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author’s words and intent.